Lily's Tale
by bleviee
Summary: We know "Snape's Worst Memory," but he wasn't the only one that lost a best friend that day.  This is that day at the lake, from the POV of the other person whose life changed that day-Lily Evans.


_A/N: The boldfaced lines are direct lifts from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, chapter 28, "Snape's Worst Memory." (page 647, I'm almost certain.) Also, Lily is a really hard character to write, since we see her only through the eyes of Harry and Snape, and both of them have her canonized. I hope I did her justice, but I feel like I went out on a limb, especially since this is my first story._

_**Disclaimer**: The Harry Potter franchise belongs to J.K. Rowling. I don't own the characters, this situation, or even some of the dialogue. (See A/N above.)_

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><p>The lake was my sanctuary. Or, rather, the shores of the lake. I could sit there with Mary and my other girlfriends, even dip my toes in if the weather was hot enough and the squid was far enough away. (As much as I love Hagrid, his definition of "harmless" is very different than mine.) We'd sit in the sun and I could relax, not having to think about O.W.L.s or classes, prefect duties or the ever-annoying James Potter, or the heavier things that were bothering me these days: the ever-worsening relationship with my sister, You-Know-Who's rise to power, and the slippery slope Severus was currently sliding down toward the Death Eaters. Technically, he was still my best friend, though the angry boy of sixteen was not the same person as the shy, slightly fumbling nine-year-old I'd met at the park. It broke my heart when I thought about it in my more cynical moments, when I realized that I missed him, though he was right there, within reaching distance. Sometimes I wondered what would happen if I just reached out and <em>touched <em>him, just sort of held him the way my mum had done for me when I was little. But I was too afraid that fragile cord holding me to the boy who was my first tie to the world where I'd found my true self would snap, that he was hiding disgust beneath a fragile dispassionate surface and the touch would shatter it into tiny, painful shards. I couldn't lose him. He was my best friend, at least in words, though in truth, his attraction to the Dark Arts was replacing me, and when I thought "best friend," it was the nine-year-old, not the sixteen-year-old, of whom I thought. In the beginning, before Hogwarts and house loyalties became more important than the friendship that had seemed unbreakable until our early teens, I had always been filled with a warm, floaty, bubbly feeling when Severus was around. Not a crush, but the warmth that can only come from true trust and a deep love. Sometimes I wished for a miracle to bring back that feeling.

Mary's voice and her hand on my arm pulled me out of my depressing thoughts, straight into a crisis. "Is that Snape? And Potter?"

The two of them together meant nothing good. Sure enough, as I looked up, Potter and Severus had drawn their wands, and bubbles filled Severus' mouth. Panic filled me, and I didn't even hear the words being exchanged. I just rushed to break up the fight before Potter seriously hurt Severus, or, even worse, Severus could hurt Potter. Not that Potter didn't deserve to be knocked flat sometimes, but I was afraid somewhere inside that Severus would resort to the Dark Arts, and then I'd be done. _We _would be done.

I pushed my way between the two, yelling at Potter to leave him alone. Potter, per the norm, asked me out.

"**I wouldn't go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid.**" I was actually rather proud of that remark. It was a rare occasion that I managed to zing Potter like that, and the most selfish part of me admitted that it felt good.

The tension flowed around, and I continued to stick up for my best friend, despite the niggling fear that had Potter not flipped him upside down, Severus' response would have been even worse than the blood spattered on Potter's shirt. Then the unthinkable happened.

**"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her."**

My knees very nearly collapsed. My heart shattered, my world tilted on its axis and nearly ejected me, and my throat closed. Somehow, I managed to choke out a response. **"I won't bother in the future."** Then _I _did what I would have thought unthinkable. I called him Snivellus.

**"Apologize to Evans!"**

_No! You don't get to act like you care about me. And he doesn't get to apologize, not for that, _was all I could think. I remember yelling at Potter, though I don't remember _what _I yelled. Then I whirled around and stormed off.

I don't remember the walk to the Tower. I _do, _however, remember choking on the word "puffskein," making it utterly unintelligible, but the Fat Lady swinging forward to admit me anyway, looking sympathetic. I wasn't crying at that point, but as soon as I was through the entrance, I sank down the wall and sobbed hysterically, thankful the common room was empty—I hate crying in front of people, and I don't know if I could have made it all the way to the girl's dormitory.

I don't know how long I had been sitting there crying when I felt an arm drop around me and pull me in. For one moment, I thought that if this were a Muggle romance novel, it would be either Potter or Severus, magically redeemed to be wonderfully mature and sympathetic (in Potter's case) or to have seen the error of his ways (in Severus'). Life, however, is not like the movies, and I leaned into what I thought was Mary's shoulder. However, instead I leaned onto a chest, definitely male. He shifted to hold me, and a prefect badge came momentarily into view on the shirt beneath the robes—it was Remus. Not Mary, but a friend, after a fashion. He would do.

I buried my face in his chest and cried for a long time. I felt his hands on my back, but he never said anything. After a while, I felt someone else's hand pull my now-tear-soaked hair away from my eyes, and a voice that wasn't Remus' whispered, "Shh, Lily, don't cry. Please don't cry, I don't do well with tears." I would have been less stunned if it was the Giant Squid comforting me—it was Sirius.

I took a deep breath and leaned back, wiping tears off my cheeks as I did so. I expected the two to escape, but both leaned forward, grabbed a hand, and squeezed.

"Talk to us."

"Yeah, Lily. And please, please don't cry like that. The last time I saw a woman cry like that, Mother was blasting Andromeda off the family tree with Ted there… it was awful. Not that any of us really care about Mother, but Andromeda was so upset. She and I were always close…" Tears were now threatening Sirius' eyes.

"I think I'm almost done crying over this entire situation. How's 'Dromeda's little girl? Dora, right? Isn't that what they call her? She's, what… three or thereabouts?" If I knew Sirius Black the way I thought I did, I could get him derailed into a positively adorable ramble about the little girl, and I could just not _think_ for a while. There were a million things wrong with him, but he loved the family he chose, there was no denying that.

Just as he opened his mouth, though, Remus put his hand up.

"No you don't. This is about you right now."

_He's entirely too damn smart to be a boy. _"I don't want to talk about it."  
>"But you need to talk about it."<p>

"It's just that… he's my best friend, or at least he's supposed to be. How could he say that? How could he _think _that? It's not the term that has me so insulted—I've been called Mudblood before. I'm damn proud of who I am. But best friends don't _do_ that. He—he said he didn't need me, Remus. He's my best friend, I've needed him my whole life, but he… I mean, I suppose I should have realized that he was changing after he hinted so much about you being—well, after Pot-James saved his life that night."

"Wait, what was he hinting at?"

"Stuff about the full moon."

"What about the full moon?"

"Don't play dumb; I know. I figured it out in third year, and pieced together what happened with Severus." I finished with a glare at Sirius, who hung his head and looked ashamed.

Remus looked stunned and scared. This time, _I _took _his _hand and squeezed. "I'm sorry, Remus, for all of this. I can't imagine what it's like… I didn't say anything, figured if you wanted me to know you'd tell me." Suddenly, almost without making a conscious decision, I leaned forward and hugged him again. Sirius, always looking for affection, wrapped his arms around the both of us, making it into a group hug. It was the strangest moment of my life, and that's truly a feat. Had I been told even that morning that I'd be sitting on the floor of the common room, hugging Remus Lupin while Sirius Black hugged me, I would've laughed.

"He doesn't deserve you, Lily, whether as a friend or as more." Sirius muttered, and inside I groaned. I rather strongly suspected he was about to launch into a lecture on the wonders of James Potter.

"And James does?" I knew my frustration was evident. I didn't care.

"No. He doesn't, either. I can't think of a single boy in our year that does. We're fifteen and sixteen, we're stupid by definition. But there's a difference in stupid boy behavior and being cruel. James has been better to me than anyone ever has, and he loves with his whole heart when he loves somebody. Look at how he treated me when he figured it out, how he reacts when Sirius's mother lashes out at him. He really does love you, he's just…"

"A sixteen year old boy? He's been cruel, Sirius, to Severus."

"And Sniv—Snape has been cruel back. I'm the one that committed the only true atrocity against Snape, and that was meant to scare, not to kill. James was the one that pointed out to me he crossed a line, the one that saved him. As for the rest, the curses? We're boys, Lily. We think with our hormones, and we do stuff to appear cool to our friends. And because chicks dig bad boys_._"

That, combined with all the tension that had come to a boiling point during that afternoon, finally tipped me over the edge, and I lost my grip, laughing hysterically. The confused looks from Sirius and Remus were even funny. Soon, I was letting out the hysteria I hadn't realized was building by simultaneously laughing and crying. Then, somehow, the laughing faded, and I was crying again.

"Oh, God, Lily, don't cry. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. I started it, he was mad at me…" I couldn't help but wonder when James had come in. I hope he hadn't witnessed the hysterical portion of my meltdown.

"James, shut up and let her cry! She needs to cry it out. Least, that's what 'Dromeda says." The fact that Sirius _knew _that, and could even cite his source, made me look up, and the looks on their faces were priceless. Remus was looking at me with sympathy, Sirius was looking at James like he was a total idiot, James looked torn between doing what Sirius said, punching him for being so heartless, and comforting me, and Peter … Peter looked like we were all speaking a foreign language. He escaped for the dorms. Remus yelled for him to bring down chocolate, but his response was to throw a box of Frogs down the stairs. This all made me start to laugh again, even more hysterically than I had before.

When I was finally able to breathe again, I choked out "I think I'm going totally spare."

"Nah, just cracking under pressure a bit is all. Have some Chocolate Frogs." Remus tossed me one. I think he appreciated that I wasn't panicking after his conformation earlier, but I'd figured out he was a werewolf before anyone, except maybe James and Sirius. The thought _it certainly does explain how he knows that chocolate is the answer most of the time; he has "that time of the month," too_ had come to me long ago, and it resurfaced in my head now. I choked down the giggle that threatened to rise up—these boys already thought I was on thin ice where my sanity was concerned.

Three Frogs later, I felt okay enough to sit up again. The severity of the situation came at me again, and I sat there, downhearted and hating my roller coaster of emotions. James pulled me to a couch, sitting me down and plopping beside me, putting an arm around me.

"I'm sorry I cost you your best friend. No matter what I think of him, you were his friend, and now he's not any more, and that's my fault."

"It's not your fault, not completely. Not really, even. Today had been due for a while. He chose to call me that… you even tried, in your idiotic, macho, utterly ridiculous way, to help me. It was his choice." I sat, still somewhat stunned despite it all, unable to reconcile the awkward yet adorable nine-year-old I'd always faintly suspected of having a small crush on me with the boy who'd spew such a horrible epithet at someone who he knew loved him.

"He's still in there, Lily. Somewhere, that little boy is still in there. He's lost his way, that's all." Mary was on the other side of me now. I didn't ask her what she knew, how much she'd seen or how long she'd stood in our Common Room. I didn't need to. I was too tired suddenly for any more talk, and extended my hand to Remus, who pulled me up on my feet and into a hug. Then Sirius was hugging me, too, and somehow James came into the picture.

In a movie, again, there would have been a moment of hesitation, a look, a spark, a kiss, and a fairytale ending. As it stood, it was just a hug, and a tentative gesture of friendship. It was enough.


End file.
